


Because of the way you feel about me

by islndgurl777



Series: Star Wars OT Soulmarks [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Episode V, F/M, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Empire Strikes Back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 17:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10518009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islndgurl777/pseuds/islndgurl777
Summary: She finds out months later from one of the scouts who had been on the Coruscant mission, and she hates both of them for making her find out this way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a direct continuation of the previous story, though they are all continuations of the previous one, really. It's Leia's perspective of the Hoth Incident, with soulmark drama added.
> 
> Dialogue from one scene borrowed from ESB.
> 
> As always, thanks to Kaitlyn for the beta. Enjoy!

She finds out months later from one of the scouts who had been on the Coruscant mission, and she hates both of them for making her find out this way.

Leia’s heart feels like it’s lurching out of her chest, scrambling to get away from her to lessen the pain of betrayal, and she quickly tamps down on the feeling. She doesn’t need Luke or Han to be distracted by her rioting emotions, not when they are out scouting the dangerous terrain of Hoth. Not when her feelings clearly won’t mean the difference between Han leaving or staying when he gets back from this patrol.

She feels a concerned question coming from Luke, wondering about her brief flash of distress and subsequent shut-off of all emotions entirely. With an exasperated huff, she sends reassurance back, narrowing their connection until it’s barely there, letting him know she doesn’t want him worried about her while he’s out scouting for signs of the Empire.

His acceptance flows back to her, and she refocuses on the paperwork in front of her. It has been a pain arranging to move their home base again, but the Empire is getting too close to finding them. She’s composing a message to the Admiral about how soon she will be able to meet him at their new location when she feels a moment of panic from Luke, followed by nothing at all.

She bolts out of her seat and opens their connection as wide as she can, desperate to feel some response from him, but she receives nothing.

She exits her office and walks quickly down to the control room, where they will be able to contact Luke. She’s staring at a screen, using it to track down Luke’s location, when she feels Han walk into the room. They make eye contact for a second, then she goes back to her screen, ignoring the pang in her heart as she remembers what her soulmates have been keeping from her. 

He walks over to report to the General and she listens in as she searches for signs of Luke. “Has Commander Skywalker reported in yet?” the General asks, and she silently blesses him.

“No, he’s checking out a meteorite that hit near him,” Han replies, and Leia lets out a relieved breath. Luke must have been startled when the meteorite hit, and then cut her off while he went to investigate.

She stands and is getting ready to leave when she hears Han say, “General, I gotta leave. I can’t stay anymore.” She freezes and turns to stare at him as he makes his excuses.

“Well, there’s a price on my head,” he says, avoiding eye contact with her. “If I don’t pay off Jabba the Hutt, I’m a dead man.”

The General tells him he’s a good fighter and sends him on his way. Leia turns back to the computer console, but she turns back again when she finally feels his eyes on her. He takes a few breaths, eyes shifting around the room, and steps closer to her. “Well, your highness, I guess this is it.”

“That’s right,” she says, nodding. No way she’s going to get emotional over him leaving, not when he won’t be getting emotional over it either.

He breaks eye contact with her, jaw hardening. “Well, don’t get all mushy on me. So long, Princess,” he spits out, and then he leaves.

She watches him go, biting back a retort. Why was he so angry at her unemotional response when he was the one who was keeping things from her? He hadn’t even been the one to tell her he was leaving; he’d left that to Luke! He just makes her so….

Before she thinks about it, she’s running out of the room after him. “Han!” she yells, stalking down the hallway.

He stops before he gets to the junction, turns to her and says politely, “Yes, Your Highnessness?”

His tone makes her more furious, but she manages to keep hers even. “I thought you had decided to stay.”

“Well, the bounty hunter we ran into in Ord Mantell changed my mind,” he says mildly.

Ord Mantell had been months before Coruscant, that liar. She tries to stay calm, but she ends up raising her voice anyways. “Han, we need you!”

“ _ We _ need?” he questions, and it sounds like a trap.

“Yes,” she replies anyways.

He takes a breath, gearing up for something. “Well, what about  _ you _ need?”

“I need?” she questions. Are they really going to have this conversation now, when neither of them have brought up their silver Marks before? Not if he’s about to leave, they’re not. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, tone condescending, shaking her head.

He pulls away from her, wry smile on his face, and says, “You probably don’t.” Then he’s walking away from her again.

_ What? _ “And what precisely am I supposed to know?” she says, chasing after him.

“Come on!” he says, not even bothering to turn around. “You want me to stay because of the way you feel about me.”

Her eyes widen, but he’s not even looking at her to notice. “Yes!” she says, but he and Luke are keeping things from her, and he’s about to leave. She can’t tell him the way she feels if he’s not going to treat her like an equal in their relationship. So she quickly continues with, “You’re a great help to us. You’re a natural leader.”

It’s exactly the wrong thing to say. He stops dead and raises a finger to point at her, voice loud enough to echo through the corridor. “No! That’s not it!” They lock eyes and he points to himself and says, “Come on.”

They continue to stare at each other even as someone walks between them, but the tension is still there. She can feel their connection widening and she’s letting her... _ affection _ for him bleed through.

Triumph lights his eyes and his smile widens. “Ah, come on!” he says, closing the space between them.

She immediately slams her side of the connection shut and says, “You’re imagining things!”

He pulls slightly away, and she can feel the sting of rejection from his side. “Am I?” he challenges her. “Then why are you following me? Afraid I was going to leave without giving you a goodbye kiss?”

She immediately glances away from his lips and says reflexively, “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee!”

“I can arrange that!” he says, turning and walking away from her again. “You could use a good kiss!”

She growls low in her throat and marches off in the opposite direction. 

///

It takes her longer than she would like to admit to realize something is very wrong. At first, she thinks the uneasy feeling creeping through her is caused by Han and his imminent departure. After a while, she realizes it’s from the void where Luke should be.

She calls the command center before she starts to panic. When they tell her Luke hasn’t returned and that they can’t get him on the comms, she tries contacting Han. Maybe his connection to Luke is still strong enough to find him. He doesn’t respond, and she struggles to catch her breath before she decides to open their connection back up and check on him. It’s only open a sliver, but she feels his smug superiority over turning off his comms, and she closes the connection again.

Furious, she sends Threepio and Artoo to ask him if he’s seen Luke while she heads to the command center to begin looking for him herself. It’s another hour before the droids find her again, and Threepio has nothing promising for her. “He was quite belligerent when I told him you were trying to contact him, your highness. He turned off his communicator and says he does not wish to speak with you. He does not have any information about Master Luke’s whereabouts, though he did seem rather concerned when I told him we didn’t know where he is.”

The sinking feeling has been growing in her for several hours, and now she knows it’s because Luke is in danger. She’s scared. It’s getting dark out, and temperatures plunge to well below freezing at night on Hoth. Her soulmate is out in it, lost and probably injured. There’s no way he’ll survive in the open.

When the news comes in to the command center than Han has mounted an unsanctioned one-man rescue mission into the growing snowstorm this close to nightfall, she falls still, hardly daring to breathe. It was bad enough when one soulmate was unaccounted for in this freezing hell, but now  _ both _ of them were out there?

She moves before she can think, on her way to follow them, but the General grabs her arm to stop her. She swings back around, eyes blazing, fist curled. “Your highness,” he starts, voice low and calm. “You can’t.”

“Why not?” she shoots back, voice high with panic.

He takes her hands in his and keeps his voice low. “Leia. Han and Luke have been trained for this, you haven’t. On top of that,” he says, and her throat tightens up, knowing what he’s going to say. “We can’t risk losing you too.”

Her hands tighten in his, but she nods and swallows the lump in her throat. “I understand.” He lets out a slow, relieved breath. “But I’m going to be in that hangar, waiting for them when they get back.” She lets go of him and, head high, stalks down to the hangar to wait for her soulmates to come back safely.

///

Once the hangar doors are closed for the night, she and Chewie make their way onto the Falcon. It’s the closest they can get to Han, so they take it.

It’s quiet in the cockpit, and dark out in the hangar. Leia refrains from speaking; if she talks about it, it’s real, and she can’t handle it if it’s real yet.

Chewie growls low in his throat. Leia sighs and says, “I don’t know. Han’s too far away and Luke is just...gone.” She buries her face in her hands and breathes deep.

_ How far out can you sense them? _

She shrugs. “Luke, almost across the planet, but he’s been injured or passed out since this afternoon. With Han, we need to be much closer, no less than 50 miles. Even then we can’t pass more than vague feelings.”

_ When they go out in the morning, can you give them a heading? _

Leia considers this for a long while. She closes her eyes and breathes deep, sending out tendrils of herself to find her soulmates. “Maybe...northeast from here?” She opens her eyes and looks over at Chewie. “It’s not like I can really  _ feel _ them, it’s more like I just... _ know _ . Is that normal?”

He chuckles and lays a gentle hand over hers.  _ Nothing about the your relationships is normal. If you say they’re northeast, I’m not betting against you. _

Leia gives him a watery smile and leans down to lay her head on the console.

_ You should go get some sleep. _

She sits up quickly, shaking her head. “I can’t leave them, I have to be here when--”

_ Han’s room is the first door on the right,  _ he says, pointing down the hall.

They stare each other down for a long time before she shifts and breaks eye contact. “We’re not...He’s not...It’s not like that with us.”

He makes a disbelieving noise in his throat.

“It’s not!” she glares at him.

They stare again, each willing the other to break. Finally, Chewie says innocently,  _ I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you borrowed a shirt to sleep in either. _

A squeak escapes her throat, and she figures it’s time to retreat with her dignity intact. She falls asleep almost instantly, wrapped up in Han’s soft shirt and his scent.

///

  
His bed is just as messy as he left it and his shirt back in his closet the next morning when he and Luke are brought back safe, albeit nearly frozen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and Kudos = Love!
> 
> The next ones (covering Han/Leia on the trip to Cloud City, and Luke on Dagobah) are done, I just need to make some minor edits. One should be posted in the next week or so.


End file.
